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Wednesday, 19 December 2012

Reader feedback – that’s what every writer craves. We want
to know that our words have reached into the minds of others and created a
link. We want to know that the people who have lived for so long in our heads
have come to life for our readers.

Today has been a great day for me as a writer, because I’ve
had two lots of very positive feedback. A neighbour stopped me while I was out
and said he’d finished Bad Moon Rising in a day. He hadn’t
been able to put it down. Did I mind if he talked to me about it? Did I mind? What
a question. Of course I didn’t mind. I was delighted.

The second thing that happened was being alerted to this review
site,where Bad Moon Rising made it to the ‘Special Mentions’ list, sharing
space with some wonderful books, such as Dominion by C. J. Sansom
and the Booker Prize long listed The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
by Rachel Joyce.

Friday, 14 December 2012

When reviewing a book that others have been raving about, as
with Before I Go to Sleep by SJ
Watson, it’s hard not to let the hype spoil the read. The theme dealing with
amnesia isn’t that original, but having the protagonist also having to cope
with short term memory loss gives it a new twist.

Christine wakes each morning knowing who she is, but not
realising she is at least 25 years older than she believed (apparently,
sometimes she thinks she is a child on waking, but that isn’t shown in the
book, we are only told about it). Each day her husband has to explain what
happened to cause her loss of memory and bring her up to date.

So far so intriguing – but then Christine receives a phone
call from a doctor who tells her she has been keeping a journal and that she
should read it. From this point onwards we follow Christine’s life through what
she writes each night before going to sleep, gradually realising that all is
far from well within her marriage.

The journal entries are long and incredibly detailed when
one considers she writes them while her husband is in the house. I found this
slightly irritating because she seems to be able to spend hours writing and yet
her husband never asks what she is doing or why she goes upstairs for hours at a
stretch.

Later, when she has found out that she shouldn’t believe everything
she is told about her former life and has met up with a friend she has known
since they met at university, the journal entries reflect her concerns and
mounting confusion.

For me, the beginning is the best part of the book. The
ending, although shocking, was a touch predictable. The middle got a bit
tedious and it was confusing at times trying to work out when the various
events had taken place – was she reading about them, or had they happened that
day?

Having said all the above, it is a powerful debut and I
would certainly read another by the author.

Wednesday, 12 December 2012

When I’d completed the first draft of Bad Moon Rising I knew it needed quite a bit more work before
submitting it anywhere, so I went through my usual routine of rewrite, leave
for a few weeks, rewrite again, leave for another few weeks, and so on.
Normally after five or six rewrites I’m fully inside the heads of my characters
and know them as well as I know myself.

In Bad Moon Rising
all the characters were there on page, well fleshed out, and the story flowed,
but I still wasn’t happy with the novel as a whole. Even though he had a unique
back-story my killer was too generic – he could have been any serial killer
from any novel by anyone writing in the genre. In short, he wasn’t my serial killer; he was a painting by
numbers character. I knew if the book was going to have any chance whatsoever
in what is a very competitive market, I had to turn him from a cardboard
cut-out into a living breathing person, who just happened to be a monster when
he gave in to his desires.

I stopped trying to write what I thought he would think and feel. I decided I had to become him. I
had to put myself so firmly inside his head that what he said and did came from
him and not from me.

We all have a dark side to our nature, but we suppress this
so that we can function in society. Generally, I’m described as a kind-hearted
person, always ready to lend a helping hand, so to become one with someone who
is not only on the borders of insanity, but is the complete opposite of my own
character wasn’t easy. I had to allow my mind to let that dark side out – and
it wasn’t a pleasant experience.

In fact, it was one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever
done as a writer – or as a human being. I found myself not only understanding the
killer’s actions, but almost applauding them. My husband soon learned not to
interrupt me when I was in killer mode because I would snarl even when asked
something as innocuous as would I like a cup of coffee. I began to have
nightmares where I acted out my killer’s fantasies and even found them
disturbingly erotic.

The day I cried while writing a flashback showing how he had
been abused as a child, I knew the killer and I had become one. I completed the
final rewrite convinced my killer was alive in a way I couldn’t possibly have foreseen.
He wasn’t just a killer, he was a man who could easily have turned out very
differently had circumstances decreed otherwise.

Did I succeed in making him unique and bringing him to life? I hope so. Crooked Cat Publishersbelieved in him
and it seems, so far, my readers do as well.